Helen, Jen, Helen and Sheila New

Helen Arney is a geek songstress and science comedian who likes making scientific ideas accessible to new audiences, investigating the social and moral implications of modern research… or, she writes songs that rhyme with “Uranus”. She loves combining music with brain-jigglingly big, important ideas to make people laugh. Her undergraduate degree was in physics. If she ever has children she will call them Tiff (if it’s a girl) or Jpeg (if it’s a boy).

Helen Keen is a comedy writer and performer who has been writing and appearing in BBC Radio 4’s stand-up space science series It Is Rocket Science! for the last couple of years. As a professional enthusiast, she hopes that her work showcases some of the creativity, originality and imagination that are the lifeblood of science, and also tells romantic stories of people pursuing dreams in the face of massive obstacles in science. In her spare time Helen collects things made out of early plastics.

Jen Gupta, PhD, is the Outreach Officer at the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the University of Portsmouth. She aims to encourage more students to study physics, and if she can’t, she tries to show them that there is more to physics than what they cover in school. In her spare time she dreams of becoming the first person to play the drums in space.

Sheila Kanani, PhD, is a planetary scientist. She is currently passing on her space-based knowledge as a secondary school teacher, where she aims to inspire future “astronauts, engineers, scientists and world leaders”. In her spare time she gives lectures and talks, and performs shows and comedy gigs about science and space. She is an all round space fanatic, tap-dancer, world-traveller and coke-float-drinking pocket-rocket.